Hi Parents!
I have a rising senior who is really feeling the pressure of college tours. She fell in love with Tulane based on the unique New Orleans culture, urban environment, strong community, centralized campus, curious student body, integration with the city, and the general energy. It also doesn’t hurt that we have some family connections in the area.
We are having a very hard time finding anything comparable but know it is important to find some additional schools. She visited College of Charleston and likes it, but is still really stuck on Tulane. It is interesting that she also really liked William & Mary. The surrounding area is not what she is looking for, but the college itself was lovely! Places that we have visited that were not a great fit: NYU, UVA, University of Richmond, SCAD, UGA, Emory, Sewanee, and Vanderbilt. We have tours set up at American University, Georgetown, and George Washington this summer.
Hoping that the parent collective can come through with some options:)
If it is helpful, she has a 4.1 GPA and 34 on the ACT. Our family is also having a hard time wrapping our heads around the major commitment of early decision. That may change, but it would be great to find some places with more flexibility with admissions.
Really grateful for any direction y’all can give!
2 Likes
It’s great that she loved Tulane so much!
Has she looked at Tufts yet? Not an easy admit by any means, but I believe a lot of people find similar things to like between W&M and Tufts, and it might have more of the city-ish feel she’s looking for?
3 Likes
Tulane lists it’s peers in their G14 consortium as: Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, George Washington University, Lehigh University, New York University, Northeastern University, Southern Methodist University, Syracuse University, Tufts University, University of Miami, University of Notre Dame, and Wake Forest University.
If you child likes the city vibe of Tulane - I’d look more closely at BC, BU, GWU, and Tufts. Wake and Brandeis, while not really in the city, are close to Raleigh and Boston and also worth a look.
I don’t think Northeastern is the same vibe as Tulane at all.
8 Likes
A lot of the Catholic colleges are medium size and most are located in/near cities: Holy Cross, Providence, St. Joseph (Philly) Villanova, Scranton, Loyola (MD).
5 Likes
I don’t think it has Tulane’s vibe, but the University of Rochester is a midsized urban(ish) east coast school.
4 Likes
Wake is in its own city. I can’t imagine Wake students going to Raleigh unless they have friends at NC State. But Winston-Salem is a wonderful city of close to 200,000 people.
1 Like
How is the GPA calculated, and is an unweighted GPA available? That information may help others give admission-realistic suggestions.
Boston College
Brown
Carnegie-Mellon
Cornell
Fairfield
Georgetown
Penn
Tufts
University of Vermont
Yale
1 Like
Pitt somehow flies under the radar but is well worth a look. It also has rolling admissions which can give your student a " bird in the hand" before the real deadlines start hitting.
5 Likes
Davidson? Emory? She seems oriented more to the South.
Good choice for rolling but definitely not midsize. Similarly Davidson is small, not midsize. My D28 has both of these on her early list to learn more about, but they are the boundaries of size for her. One too big, one too small. Agree with some of the other recommendations up and down the east coast in that 4-12K range.
How much is cost a consideration?
Some schools may be more prone to merit and/or meeting need. Many of the schools being thrown out as comparable are $80-$100K/year.
You also don’t say what she’s looking to study. Any suggestion for an alternate to Tulane is irrelevant if they don’t have the major(s) she’s looking at.
1 Like
I’d take a look at Loyola New Orleans if she wants to stay close to that Tulane/New Orleans feel but with a different admissions profile. Pitt could also be worth a look — very urban, strong academics, and not as locked into the ED game. Since she liked William & Mary, maybe Wake Forest or Davidson too, though they won’t have the same city energy. Fordham might also be a good fit if she likes a campus feel within a big city.
4 Likes
Just echoing others.
GW, Wake, and Miami are to me sort of obvious suggestions to check out for someone who liked Tulane and William & Mary, although I think some kids end up forming a strong preference for one or the other of these schools depending on details.
Jesuit colleges in general supply a long list that fit the general description “urban environment, strong community, centralized campus, curious student body, integration with the city, and the general energy”. Obviously you can start with Georgetown and BC, but also Holy Cross (depending on your definition of urban), Fairfield (same), Fordham, St Joseph (Philly), Loyola Maryland, and Loyola New Orleans (not East Coast but she liked Tulane). There are way more outside the East Coast, in fact.
Delaware is a good suggestion for a Northeast corridor public that mostly fits this description. It is in a college town, but a reasonably-quick train ride to anywhere from NYC through Philly, Baltimore, and DC.
If you are willing to stray out of the East Coast proper, I agree Pitt is another good suggestion, and does indeed have rolling admissions. Pittsburgh is a really fun city, not least for college students, and Pitt has a great location right in the middle of it. It is also right next to CMU, and in fact if you like you can take some courses there (as well as a few other local universities).
3 Likes
Large by enrollment but small by campus size. We visited Pitt right after Penn State so in comparison …
1 Like
Yes, Pitt’s Oakland campus is pretty compact. It is actually hard to describe because it is sort of integrated into the urban fabric in the lower parts, but then turns into more of a dedicated campus in the upper parts (there are very often upper and lower parts in Pittsburgh, it is a hilly city). But at least as the crow flies, it is all pretty close together.
I also note that with around 21K undergrads in Oakland, Pitt is obviously not on the smaller end for a public research university, like say William & Mary (about 7K). But not exactly on the large end either. Like Ohio State (Columbus) or Penn State (University Park) are something like twice that size, Washington (Seattle) 1.7X, Minnesota (TC) 1.5X, and so on.
And then of course while not at all uniquely, Pitt does have a reasonably robust Honors program, which may well be an option for this particular kid (although you only find out later and it takes a separate essay). The whole point of those is to make the university “feel smaller” for select kids.
None of this is intended to suggest a Pitt application is mandatory. But if at some point this kid isn’t yet satisfied with her whole list and is looking for some more options, a visit to Pitt to actually see how it feels wouldn’t be the worst idea. Some people are still “nah”, but others end up liking it more than they expect.
And particularly if she visits CMU anyway, might as well wander across the bridge.
Between our three kids, I have visited a lot of schools. I remember for oldest S20 BU looked on paper like the perfect school. He literally knew even before I finished parking that it wasn’t going to be for him. We had written off Pitt because of BU, Urban campus, similar enrollment but threw it in because we were heading to Penn State. Didn’t like Penn State but loved Pitt.
I know there’s a strategy of visiting school types—big, medium, small—urban, suburban, rural to narrow down options, but that only goes so far. I looked at my son’s old notes, he wrote “Pitt felt like it was on a campus in a city; at BU, I felt I was in a city not on a campus.” Nothing against BU, it just wasn’t his cup of tea.
3 Likes
What about Emerson or Northeastern? Both are in Boston but both have distinct campuses. At Northeastern, you are not required to do their coop programs.
And I agree with Brandeis as a suggestion as well.
Loyola Maryland might also be an option.
1 Like